TROJAN Program (LOMI/Baccus)
The pet-project of Marine Brigadier General Valor Geisel of ONI Section 3, the TROJAN Program was an attempt to make super-soldiers from select members of the Marine Corps and its' special forces, most prominently the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. Similar in both purpose and application to the ORION Project - even going so far as to include several former members of the deactivated group - the TROJAN Program took some of the most skilled and effective soldiers that the Corps had to offer and augmented them, creating super-soldiers almost on par with the Spartan-III's capabilities but better suited for assault missions rather than stealth. History During the years of the Great War, the UNSC was desperate to win the struggle against the Covenant at whatever cost necessary, even when morality and authority got in the way: within the Office of Naval Intelligence, projects and operations would pass under the mainstream radar for years and never be discovered or even hinted at. One of the largest and most successful projects, all things considered, was actually the TROJAN Program. Planned and started through the efforts of UNSC Marine Corps Brigadier General Valor Geisel, the program was planned to created super-soldiers with capabilities greater than those of the ORION Project, but not quite on par with the SPARTAN-II Program, creating cost-effective armies of super-soldiers. Taking assets and funds from several other ONI projects, pulling information from Projects CHISEL and DHARMA for augmentation procedures while drawing on HEPHAESTUS and, later, small amounts of EXCALIBUR material for the armor and weapons systems used by the TROJANS. Interestingly enough, the TROJAN Program ran parallel to the SPARTAN-III Program's Beta Company, and shared many similarities; however, no links between the two programs, or even knowledge of each others' existence, were ever found. In 2536, Geisel personally picking 100 candidates from within the UNSC Marine Corps, with at least 22 being former members of the ORION Project: these candidates, Combat Group Alpha, would be briefly tested and trained physically before undergoing the augmentations procedures shortly thereafter. The end result, however, was less than anticipated, with only 36 survivors total - 14 of these were ORION members, leading to testing which proved that the ORION procedures had aided in saving these fourteen person's lives. Of the survivors, only two teams of ten would be formed (Team Alpha and Team Omega), while the other sixteen would be divided up, either used as personal agents of General Geisel or "sold off" to other ONI groups. The survivors of Combat Group Alpha would prove the success of Geisel's TROJAN Program, going on hundreds of missions collectively and dealing with threats, both external and internal, with extreme prejudice. Keeping seven TROJAN agents to serve as his personal operatives, these agents alone would become some of the most well-known November Black executioners used by Section 0, particularly the infamous Codename: GRENDAL, whose assassinations during 2546-48, among other questionable activities, drew a good deal of attention during the Operation: VORAUSSICHT investigations after the Great War. Teams Alpha and Omega, meanwhile, would become experienced soldiers on the war front, aiding in the defense of UNSC worlds from their deployment till the War's end. Baptized in fire, both teams would be given missions as soon as they were recovered from the augmentations: Team Alpha was sent to the defense of Eos V from a Covenant invasion, while Team Omega was deployed against the Covenant-held world of Vulcan. During the Battle of Eos V, Team Alpha would ensure that Covenant assaults on critical locations were held back for hours, gaining valuable time for evacuation and counter-operations, dealing heavy blows to the Covenant force even though it eventually gained the planet. Team Omega, meanwhile, would lead in a surgical strike against the Covenant commanders on Vulcan that killed all three Sangheili Generals present at the battle, disorienting the ground troops long enough for the UNSC to gain the upper hand and push the frontal line forward: this push would lead to the UNSC recapturing their orbital defense turrets, with which they managed to turn the tide against the Covenant fleet in orbit. Proven to be successful operatives, General Geisel would repeatedly deploy his TROJANS into combat theaters with spectacular results, prompting him to move ahead with the planned second generation of TROJAN in 2541. Conscripting three Alpha TROJANS as trainers for this new generation, 200 recruits were gathered and training began immediately, with research on the augmentation procedures being sent into an accelerated pace with the hope that improvements would be ready for the Bravo TROJANS graduation. After an extended training period of eight months, the Bravo TROJANS underwent augmentations with a much better rate of survival, with Combat Group Bravo experiencing roughly a 35% failure rate as opposed to Combat Group Alpha's 65%. The remaining one hundred and thirty three TROJANS were then divided into seven teams, each varying in size: while Team Berserker would end being the largest team of Combat Group Gravo, Team Bravo would to be the most successful of the TROJAN teams, there exploits leading to Geisel arranging Combat Group Charlie to be moved into the acquisition stage in 2544. In addition to the seven main teams, the seventeen remaining members who would see use as individual special force agents in various fields, three even going on to become personal guards to the ONI Deputy Director of Operations Codename: OZYMANDIAS. While the Bravo TROJANS would only continue to build the TROJAN Programs good image, the two most famous engagements involving Bravo TROJANS lay on opposite ends of the spectrum, both in terms of method and content: the second-best known was the Battle of Marduk in 2542, the group's first year in action, when TROJAN Teams Omega, Berserker and Blizzard were deployed to defend against a Covenant invasion force five times the UNSC's defending fleet. Among the Covenant forces was a Covenant Special Operations unit known as the Lance of Unrelenting Reparation, trained specifically to deal with UNSC super-soldiers, or "Demons" as the Covenant called them: the Lance would end up finding the TROJAN teams and dealing wounding blows to Omega and Berserker, though the UNSC forces would evacuate before the Covenant destroyed the planet. The most famous event involving TROJAN during the war, however, was an entirely different sort of situation: deployed on an offensive operation, Teams Blasphemy and Bison were to engage a Covenant outpost with the aid of VOLSUNG Team LYNX. Unfortunately, rivalry between the TROJANs and VOLSUNGs ended up compromising the mission, to the point where several members of both teams died from enemy attacks and one TROJAN due to a VOLSUNG's lack of action to save him. This incident only exacerbated the rivalry between the two programs, both on the level of soldiers and commanders, to the point where VOLSUNG and TROJAN assets were never deployed together unless absolutely necessary. As the defense of the Inner Colonies began, casualties rose ever higher, and augmented soldiers like the TROJANs were no exception; so, after easy acceptance by the upper echelon of ONI, Geisel initiated the third TROJAN division, Combat Group Charlie. Personnel Project Personnel Combat Group Alpha (2537) Team Alpha *Roy Koel - *Edwin Davis - *Lisa Davis - *Kymberli Wilson - *Jerry Peters - *Marshall Black - *Amy Black - Team Omega Remaining Operatives *Codename: GRENDEL - Combat Group Bravo (2542) Team Bravo *(16 members) Team Ballast *(21 members) Team Blasphemy *(9 members) Team Beret *(19 members) Team Berserker *(32 members) Team Bison *(12 members) Team Blizzard *(7 members) Remaining Operatives *Helen Calypso - a volunteer for Combat Group Bravo, little is known of Helen Calypso (also known by the ONI codename VECTOR) other than that she was born on Harvest and was employed into the Black Operations Group after becoming a TROJAN. Combat Group Charlie (2546) Team Charlie Combat Group Delta (2550) Team Delta Equipment Trivia *The initial plan for TROJAN simply tied together LOMI's Team Alpha and Matt/Baccus' Combat Groups Bravo and Charlie, then incorporated LOMI's Delta Team also. Later, after Matt's Helen Calypso joined the ranks, the program became a larger project, with things becoming more interconnected and having more survivors *Originally, TROJAN's acronym was "Tactical Response, Organized Joint Assault, Nonconventional-force Program", which was removed for sheer ridiculousness and blatant half-plagiarism of Ajax's own SPARTAN-IV acronym See Also *Team Alpha *Operation: VORAUSSICHT